The present invention relates to a laser device with a high-voltage pulse generator and to a high-voltage pulse generator and pulse generating method which are most suitable for use with a laser device or discharge-type load.
Laser devices of the transversely excited atmospheric pressure (TEAP) type have required high-voltage pulses of a short rise time. In the past, a pulse generating circuit of this type has been disclosed in JP-A No. 60-96182 filed in Japan on Sept. 28, 1984 claiming the priority on the basis of Ser. No. 3335690.4 filed in West Germany on Sept. 30, 1983. This pulse generating circuit is designed so that one of two parallelly charged capacitors is discharged through an inductance to invert the voltage of the discharged capacitor and combine it with the voltage of th other capacitor thereby producing a voltage which is two times the charged voltage and also a saturable reactor is saturated to take out as an output the electric energy stored in the capacitors. Thus, there is a need for a large-capacity switching element capable of switching at a time about half the electric energy to be outputted during the discharging of said one capacitor. Moreover, the capacity of the switching element or the saturable reactor is increased in inverse proportion to the rise time of the output pulse. Also, while the number or capacity of the following stages in the pulse generating circuit may be increased to decrease the capacity of the switching element, this method has the disadvantage of increasing the numbers of the capacitors and the saturable reactors and increasing the size of the pulse generating circuit with the resulting increase in the cost and the like.